Edit: I have acquired a library card. Just one of those things I never thought of doing before. Thanks for everyone who told me to do so lol <3
Gosh it’s been a while since I last visited this sub. Here’s the TL;DR: I checked out a few LGBTQ+ books from the public library yesterday with my mom’s library card. She refused to acknowledge them and then returned the books while I was asleep.
I’m actually so pissed off right now. Yesterday I (F20) went to the library with my mom to check out some books. The first book I grabbed was by Hank Green, a YouTuber whose content I enjoy. I had no knowledge the main character was bisexual or that the story featured a prominent lesbian relationship. I left the book on the table while I went to browse for more, and my mom googled the first book’s title to check if it was “appropriate”. When I came back I was going to ask her if I could check out an autobiography about the stonewall riots (I never received a good education about queer history, and it’s something I want to learn about not only due to political relevance, but because it’s something I’m interested in). Well, she got upset and asked me why I was interested in “these things” like the word gay is a curse or something. I honestly didn’t know how to respond because she 1. Knows I’m an atheist 2. Knows I don’t believe in Mormonism and 3. Knows I’m asexual myself. She reluctantly agreed to check the books out for me, but said “I could learn about these things [lgbt history] without it being gay” (no tf I can’t?) and that “what I read affects my mind”. She then proceeded to ignore me for the rest of the day, so I thought things were okay and that she just needed some time to think about it.
Well, the next morning after teaching seminary, she came into my room and returned my books while I was asleep. I then wake up to the text message attached.
For additional context: neither book is rated YA, there are no sex scenes, and the nonfiction autobiography doesn’t even include any gay relationships. The first book is a fictional story about aliens. The second book talks about the author’s life as an American immigrant during the stonewall riots.
Overall, I just feel so let down. Not only did my mom take away my books, she refused to talk to me about it in person and let me think that I could make my own choices. I’m an adult ffs. I still have a hard time wrapping my head around it all since my parents have never been so blatantly homophobic before. They’ve talked about “supporting” their gay peers but not “accepting” or whatever, but this level of censorship is insane to me.
I’m just trying to figure out what my best course of action is here. How do I reply? I don’t want to ignore it or shove it down, because that just means my boundaries will continue to be ignored. If you read everything, thank you.